BT Sport bidding war with ITV and Sky could see UEFA land £1bn jackpot bonanza

The forthcoming battle for Champions League TV rights in the UK is expected to result in a £1billion bonanza for UEFA.

The current three-year contract with Sky and ITV is worth £400m but the entry of BT Sport into the market is forecast to lead to the price more than doubling.

BT, who celebrated the launch of their sports channel next week with a party in their Olympic Park studios last night, are prepared to splash out on the Champions League, as they have done for Premier League and FA Cup content.

Competitive: BT Sport, Sky and ITV are all prepared to pay whatever it takes to secure Champions League coverage

And with Sky and ITV both determined to pay whatever it takes to retain coverage of the prestige competition, UEFA can expect a windfall.

Sky claim that losing out to BT for the FA Cup means more money is available for the Champions League, for which they remain favourites with ITV to keep the contract.

The Olympic Stadium’s triangular floodlight towers are the outstanding design feature of the iconic venue. Yet they will be among the first structures to be dismantled after this weekend’s Anniversary Games when the Balfour Beatty Group begin their £41m contract to erect a new roof. The larger canopy means the 600 tons of lighting cannot be retained, although the renovated stadium will have inverted triangular floodlighting as a nod to its Olympic heritage.

Iconic: The Olympic Stadium's triangular floodlights are to be dismantled after the Anniversary Games

With London Legacy Development Corporation planning a Games trail in the Park, maybe the triangles can provide the lighting — especially as the British Olympic Association have scrapped plans for a £10m museum there on cost grounds, with all their 2012 memorabilia currently under lock and key in a Coventry warehouse.

David Pleat, still one of the best football pundits, finally received his honorary MA from the University of Bedfordshire this week for services to football and the media — a year after the degree award was announced.

Deserving: David Pleat has received an honorary MA from the University of Bedfordshire for services to football and the media

Certainly Pleat is a lot more deserving of the honour than the disgraced Jimmy Savile, whose local charity work, it’s understood, the university had been planning to recognise.

Clare Balding, whose weekly chat show on BT Sport is being promoted as one of their lead programmes, was taking no chances with the choice for her pilot interview.

It was swimmer Mark Foster, with whom she shared a great rapport in the Aquatics Centre during the 2012 Games. Balding’s first guests for real next Thursday are in-house ambassador Rio Ferdinand and rower Katherine Grainger.

Meanwhile, there is more chance of a desperate Australian side regaining the Ashes this summer than BT and Sky joining forces to persuade the Premier League to allow TV access into dressing rooms.

Not only are the two networks at war over long-term PL supremacy, but BT executive Grant Best, who suggested the initiative, is persona non grata at Sky after decamping to the opposition.

HONG KONG NOT ON SONG

Hong Kong has proved to be a cursed sporting venue this summer, with Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio’s complaints about the ‘killer pitch’ for the beleaguered Premier League Asia Trophy following the Lions’ unnecessary stopover en route to Australia.

The Lions quickly realised they were in HK purely for the benefit of kit
backers HSBC, a belief underlined by the bank’s sports sponsorship
chief Giles Morgan relocating there after the tour to organise HSBC’s
150th anniversary in 2015.

Paul Hunt, the former Blackburn deputy chief executive who was sacked by
the club’s Indian owners after calling for the dismissal of rookie
manager Steve Kean, has been appointed acting CEO at Leeds - another
Championship club where the ownership strategy seems far from settled.

Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, despite his bizarre appointment of Joe Kinnear as director of football, doesn’t get many business decisions wrong. But a High Court judgement has prevented Ashley’s Sports Direct empire from selling Queensberry branded clothing - ruling that boxing promoter Frank Warren and his partner Robert Earl own the trademark.